March 28, 2012 12:54am EDTMarch 27, 2012 11:30am EDTFor elite starters like Pekka Rinne, Marc-Andre Fleury and Roberto Luongo, rest is necessary—for them and their teams. Which goalies are rested, and which are tempting fate?

As much as the Pittsburgh Penguins, in a mad scramble for the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs, have been scoring lately, they could not keep pace with the Ottawa Senators on Saturday night.

The red light flashed eight times behind Brad Thiessen, who became the first Penguins goalie to allow that many goals in a game since Andy Chiodo in 2004. The only way Thiessen was going to come out of the game was if he suffered an injury to something other than his pride. It was the front end of a back-to-back set for the Penguins, and as much as Pittsburgh wants the top spot in the East, coach Dan Bylsma knows that he needs Marc-Andre Fleury to be as fresh as possible.

When the Penguins beat the New Jersey Devils on Sunday, Fleury was back in net, playing his 62nd game of the season. That equals the number of games that Fleury played during the 2008-09 campaign, which he followed with 24 more appearances in the playoffs en route to winning the Stanley Cup.

Since 2003, when Martin Brodeur led the Devils to the Stanley Cup after 73 regular-season games, no conference champion goalie has made more appearances than Fleury's 62 in 2008-09. If there is a cause for concern about a healthy Penguins team entering the playoffs, it might be Fleury’s heavy workload; backup Brent Johnson has been injured and ineffective, and the starter has had to work more than most of his counterparts. The same concern should abound in Nashville over the 68 games played already by Pekka Rinne.

Last year’s Cup-winning goalie, Tim Thomas, played 57 games during the regular season, while runner-up Roberto Luongo played 60.

In defense of their title, the Bruins started the season by once again being very conservative with the 37-year-old Thomas—a luxury that Boston could afford before one of the best backups in the league, Tuukka Rask, suffered a groin injury. The Bruins did bring in veteran Marty Turco, but Thomas still played in 15 straight games—including two games split with Turco—before finally getting a full night off on Sunday. Thomas now has played 55 games, ahead of last season’s pace, and his .900 save percentage and 2.78 goals against average since the All-Star break are worrisome.

Running the same plan has worked out fine for Vancouver, where Luongo has played 52 games and Cory Schneider has appeared in 29. Not only has Schneider allowed Luongo to stay fresh as the Canucks prepare anew to battle for the franchise’s first Cup, the 26-year-old backup often has outplayed Vancouver’s No. 1 stopper, going 17-7-1 with a .934 save percentage and 2.04 goals against average.

“We’re very confident whenever he’s in net,” Canucks defenseman Dan Hamhuis said. “Lu’s played great for us, and it’s almost been a 1-A, 1-B type of thing. As players, we don’t get concerned. Schneids has been great for us, all last year and every time he’s been in this year. He’s been excellent.”

Schneider has been particularly strong in the games when Vancouver has most needed someone fresh in net—on the back-end of consecutive games. With a 6-2-0 record, .935 save percentage and 2.03 goals against average in those situations, the confidence that Schneider has inspired in his teammates is well deserved.

“It’s the reason to have two goalies,” Schneider said. “For us, to have two goalies you can trust. For me, the rest of the team might be tired (for the second game of a back-to-back), but I’m relatively fresh and I might have the jump to maybe be the difference in a difficult game for our guys. It’s a situation that I take a lot of pride in, that I want to be the difference maker.”

Once the playoffs begin, it is unlikely that Schneider will play in any role other than relief or injury replacement, as was the case when he appeared in five postseason games last year. But the importance of Schneider’s contributions was evident enough last season, when a fresher Luongo backstopped Vancouver to the Finals after three previous second-round exits, in seasons that saw Luongo play 76, 73 and 68 games.

The New York Rangers are hoping for the trend to work similar magic with a fresher Henrik Lundqvist this spring, as the 30-year-old will finish with fewer than 65 appearances for the first time since he played 53 games as a rookie in 2005-06. The last four times that New York has gone to the playoffs, following seasons in which Lundqvist played 70, 72, 70 and 68 games, the Rangers have not made it out of the second round.

The plan for Lundqvist last season was not for him to play in 68 games, but after backup Martin Biron fractured his collarbone at the end of February, Lundqvist was in the Rangers’ net for all but 20 minutes of the remainder of the season. With Biron back healthy, and playing well, there has been no time this season when Lundqvist has played more than six consecutive games—and when he did that, it was over a 15-day stretch at the start of the season that included two games in Europe and a full week off.

“I don’t look at Marty as the guy that comes in for Hank,” Rangers coach John Tortorella said. “I look at him as part of our tandem. I don’t consider him a backup. He deserves the respect of a guy that’s one of our goaltenders. That’s very important, where it’s not to get Hank rest—it is a guy that we want to come in, play and win. That’s very important if you want to get where you want to be. Your backup—I shouldn’t even say that—your other goalie cannot just come in just to spell your starter. We know Hank is our starter, he’s our No. 1 guy. But he also has to find a way to get points, and he certainly has shown that to us.”

As important as Biron, Rask and Schneider have been to their clubs, no contender has a goaltending tandem to match the St. Louis Blues, who have all but platooned Brian Elliott and Jaroslav Halak. Both have played enough to qualify among the NHL’s statistical leaders, and Elliott and Halak are 1-2 in goals-against average, with Elliott leading the league in save percentage and Halak sixth. Whether the Blues’ two-headed net monster will work in the playoffs remains to be seen, but St. Louis knows for sure that goaltender exhaustion will not be a concern.